South Lake students awarded for excellence in marketing, culinary; auto shop gets renovations

Senior Justin OíDonnell puts the finishing touches on one of the Valentineís Day cakes. OíDonnell, along with the rest of the culinary class, worked diligently to finish the cakes on time for the holiday.

The Career Technical Education Award for Excellence was received by two South Lake students in the programs of Marketing and Culinary Arts. These students received this honor because of their determination and drive to succeed. It takes good work and concentration to be a good student, but that is not the only things these students are about. It took better work, better concentration, and the need to excel beyond average levels to win this award.

Senior Tim Carroll won the CTE Award for Marketing. According to James Bunting, the advisor for the Marketing class, Carroll has excelled tremendously to the point of being given this Award. “Timothy is an A student in the Marketing class and is a student teller in our Michigan First Credit Union Branch,” Bunting explains. “He has received all A’s on performance reviews and has pleased supervisors with his quality of work.”

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Carroll has certainly met the high standards to receive this award and is proud of his efforts. “I knew I was excelling in Marketing and really promoting the CTE classes throughout the school,” said Carroll. With all of his efforts, it has become an advantage to earn this award because of future preparations. “I am not going to go into a marketing career, but I will definitely use the skills I learned in the CTE classes with whatever I do.”

In Culinary Arts, Senior Tyler Robbel has developed the skills to become highly successful in the kitchen. Robbel’s earning this award was a proud moment for the student, who aspires to own a restaurant one day.

“I believe I deserve this award because I feel like I have achieved and tried my hardest.”, says Robbel. The award came as a surprise to him, but the achievement leads him into his future. Robbel plans to continue his culinary arts career after high school and earning this award has given him a head start to future success.

The future of South Lake’s CTE programs plans to grow and students winning these awards is an indication of future growth.

“The CTE Awards are important as it gives us a chance to recognize students for their hard work in CTE classes,” said South Lake’s Curriculum Director John Thero. According to him, more CTE programs integrated into the school mean more opportunities for prosperous students. Thero also added that it isn’t a question of whether to expand but what areas are the best fit and provide the best opportunities to the South Lake students.

South Lake High School Produces Holiday Cheer

Lisa Ruge And Nick Kasprzak

South Lake High School

This past Valentine’s Day, culinary students at South Lake High School came up with the idea to create, decorate and sell heart-shaped sweetheart cakes to students and staff. The custom nine inch cakes were sold for $5.00 and came with a cute message or the receiver’s name piped onto the top in frosting.

Culinary students hand baked, frosted, and decorated the cakes from scratch. Each one was extremely unique and came in a variety of different colors and designs.

“I think decorating was everyone’s favorite part of the process, we made our own frosting and went to town,” said first year culinary student Gavino Romo.

There were about 200 cakes sold all together. This process took about four days. “Each cake took around 15 minutes. We spent about 2 days deciding color, fair price, and a way to get the cakes out to the people that bought them,” Romo explains.

“The culinary students had a great time with this project, and what a great way to learn about running a business!” commented Assistant Principal Michael Fringer.

Most students agreed that $5.00 was a fair and easy price to manage. The proceeds went towards the cost to run the activity, and also to aid the culinary arts program. Students went around during advisory classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and also made announcements at the end of each day as a way of advertising and making awareness of the sale. Since the success of this one, future sales are expected to be set in place for next year on upcoming holidays such as Christmas, and Halloween. Culinary Arts Teacher Lisa Carleton is also hoping to offer a larger variety of products like Pies for Thanksgiving or cupcakes.

Carleton expresses her gratitude towards the students, saying “I am really proud of the work my students did with the Valentine’s Day cake sale.”

South Lake Auto Shop excels with new renovations

Tim Carroll

South Lake High School

After years of good use and wear and tear, South Lake High School’s auto shop was completely renovated with the thought of preparing students for the future.

“There’s nothing bad about the remodel,” said CTE Auto Shop Instructor Nate Barton. “The students take pride in their shop now.” Barton, who teaches all auto classes at South Lake, including a basic auto class for beginners and advanced classes too, was very excited for the new shop. “The floors and walls needed to reflect a professional work environment. The students respect the new floor and keep it clean,” said Barton. The teacher added that the renovation was needed to “keep competitive and up to date.”

Students also enjoy their new place of business, students like third year auto student and senior Joseph Wilkins. Wilkins was in the class before the remodel and is excited about being able to work in the new environment.

“We’re more prepared for the real world now,” said Wilkins. “We have the technology that we would use in a real job for auto...it’s made the shop much better.” Students, like Wilkins, in Auto Shop are appreciative that the new equipment is up-to-date now. With modern technology the class is much smoother according to Wilkins. “It’s easier to pull cars in and out and make it easier for us to work on them and clean up afterwards.”

Auto Shop students plan to keep their new shop clean and modern in order to ensure all students get the same career experience that they get now.